Cut and Paste, Start Again
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cave girl
I read a story called cave girl, by deborah levy, about a girl who decides to have a sex change in order to become a pretend woman...
"My sister Cass thinks that ice cubes in the shape of hearts will change her life. Cass is a Stone Age girl. She hopes hearts will bring her love in the same way the Ancients thought dancing for the Gods would bring rain... Cass wants to be somewhere else. She has been abducted by visions of paradise that are not here, and to punish me for being happy, she twisted her hair into a tight plait and cut the whole lot off. I used to be scared of open spaces until I realized it was indoors that was the most frightening...
...And then one night Cass told me her secret. Unburdened her confidence on my white boy shoulders. She said she wants a sex change.
"What, into a man?"
"No, into a woman."
"But you are a woman."
"I want to be another kind of woman."
"What does that mean Cass?"
"I want to be lighthearted," she begins, and already the worry lines on her forehead come into focus. "I want to be airy." My sister is whispering this to me under the new shrub in the dark. her sad girl breath makes me dizzy. She says, "I want to have blue eyes for a start, thats the trick, Blue eyes are the gentlest, sexiest, most ambivalent eyes. My blue eyes will cut out, but they will also be very much there." When Cass says "very much there," a thrill jolts through my stomach. She chews her nails for a while and then says, "I want to be a pretend woman."
...So this woman walks up the gravel drive, long legs, wearing sandals even though it's raining. Sandals with little heels and crisscross straps over the instep. Dragging her bag with limp wrists, smiling under a dirty blonde fringe and the bluest eyes, kind of flat eyes, can't get inside 'em but she's got energy in her body and she says, "Hi bruv. Do you like my fake snake?" I don't know who she is or what she's talking about and then I see she's pointing to her fake snakeskin sandals.
"I'm Cass," she smiles, dimpling her cheek...
...When she speaks it's like she's trailing the tips of her fingers across the surface of a swimming pool, no gloomy silences or deep breaths before saying something something truly hideous... This Cass laughs with her eyes and she is all here, but she's also far away, admiring the rosebush like she's never sen it before...
...She has become airy, like she said she wanted to. For a start, she doesn't have opinions that she shouts in my ear, she listens to what I have to say as if I am someone important. And when I tell her a joke she laughs, shining her dimples in my direction, making toast with lots of butter just how I like it. When she eats toast, she breaks it up in the palm of her hand and kind of pecks it up into her mouth, always on the lookout for something I might need...
...The men around here all make excuses to talk to her when they get back from work. I've noticed how they chat from inside their cars, air conditioning on and the windows down. Nothing makes sense any more. Cass leans in towards them, she is all there, lighthearted and smiling, listening to how their day has been and how bored they are with their wives... Why does she bother talking to these men? I know she knows they're boring so what does she get out of it? Why does she care whether they like her or not?
"I told you," she says, her voice sort of serious but flirtatious as well, "I want to be a pretend woman. I want to be less real. The surgeon did well. He really fiddled with my controls."
She breathes out when she says this, like something amazing has happened to her..."
I spend 40 hours of every week in a place where almost all of the women are pretend women. And sometimes I wish there really was a doctor I could see to have my controls fiddled with. Breathing seems to come easy to them.
12:14 - 30 November 2007
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